World’s first crowdfunded boutique hotel

Crowdfunding a new boutique hotel in southern Italy, with the cash coming upfront from future guests, appears to be off to a successful start. The campaign is described on its Facebook site as “the world’s first crowdsourced and crowdfunded boutique hotel”, though there have been such projects in the past.

The boutique hotel company Amberlair says it needs to raise around €25 million to fund the conversion of a historic estate and villa into a 60-room hotel in Oria in the Italian province of Puglia, which it hopes to open in 2020.

Although the bulk of this money, €18 million, will come from the EU, Amberlair is looking to raise the other €7 million from private investors including crowdfunding efforts.

This plan has so far raised more than €16,000 through a campaign on the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform, which will pay for the cost of architectural drawings.

Backers of the Amberlair Puglia project will receive benefits such as discounts of up to 82% when staying at the hotel and can even have suites named after them.

Noble villa
It is set on a rural estate of farmhouses and buildings surrounding a villa that was built as a summer residence by a noble Italian family in 1902. The estate also includes eight farmhouses, a birdhouse and two water towers, surrounded by 40 hectares of land with terraces, olive groves and vineyards.

“We are thrilled that boutique hotel lovers like the idea of using crowdsourcing to build the perfect hotel as much as we do and are willing to be involved creatively and financially in the project,” said Amberlair founders Kristin Lindenberg and Marcus Orbe.

“The Amberlair community will continue to have creative input to shape the hotel’s eventual design and service amenities, putting the power firmly back in their hand. We are excited to be one step closer to opening our first hotel and welcoming our backers as some of our first guests.”

The company is now raising further funding to cover the renovation and development costs of the project on platforms such as Angel Investment Network and Fundable.
Once completed, as well as the main hotel there will be 10 cave and spa rooms, a separate spa, swimming pools and 10 tents.

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